I'm pleased to announce an "experiment" that I've been interested in for a long time. Everyone seems to have trouble artificially incubating South African tortoise species, yet the babies seem to have no trouble hatching out of the ground after 12-18 months in any variety of "Mediterranean" climates. Clearly, there are elements we don't understand, and the purpose of this data collection is to help us understand at least one of those elements and possibly draw some inference to some of the other under-understood elements.
I don't know that I would have ever gotten around to following through and getting this one done if it were left to me. At this point I must give credit where it is due. @Sterant decided to include me in his new Chersina Angulata Working Group. Solving the mysteries of this species and understanding how to get adults, eggs, and hatchlings to survive and thrive, and also starting a studbook for the species, are the priorities of the group. I can't thank Dan enough for including me, and renewing my passion for the species. The conversations I've had with Dan over the last year have contributed to much study and learning on my part, and gathering pieces to this puzzle has become a new obsession for me. Which is what brings me to:
@Markw84 and I are both students of tortoise biology and physiology. Mark has contributed greatly to my tortoise knowledge in several areas, but particularly in incubation technique and theory. We've had many conversations about night temp drops, gas exchange, moisture and humidity, diapause, and more. He and I both experiment with many of these factors and are trying to learn more. Anyone who enjoys reading this thread and learning about this subject needs to directly thank Mark. He is the one who finally made this happen.
What is this all about? This:
That little thing that is double bagged and wrapped in blue duct tape and hanging under the monkey hut is a data logger. It records the temperature. It takes a reading every 10 minutes and stores it in its memory. In about a year, we will pull it out from its always shaded location, unwrap it, plug it into the computer and it will tell us the temperature in that spot for the last year. Why do we care about that? Because it gives us a local ambient temperature to compare to the readings from the other two data loggers.
Know what this is?
Its a nest hole dug by an adult female South African Leopard tortoise. She dug a full nest hole and then walked away from it without dropping her eggs. Then it rained for a day. I dug out the loose stuff that the rain washed into the hole and took this measurement:
It was difficult to get the camera lens at the right level, but the nest is about 9" deep when its filled back in.
Data loggers 2 and 3 were also double bagged and then put into these little Tupperware containers. Then I taped some hay string to the containers to make them easier to find and retrieve after a year. Here it is in the hole:
And covered back up:
Here is where she went and finally laid her eggs the next day:
Here is a pic showing the whole area. There are nests under each of the little baskets in this picture and our data logger is in the hole near the stump down there:
More to come in the next post...
I don't know that I would have ever gotten around to following through and getting this one done if it were left to me. At this point I must give credit where it is due. @Sterant decided to include me in his new Chersina Angulata Working Group. Solving the mysteries of this species and understanding how to get adults, eggs, and hatchlings to survive and thrive, and also starting a studbook for the species, are the priorities of the group. I can't thank Dan enough for including me, and renewing my passion for the species. The conversations I've had with Dan over the last year have contributed to much study and learning on my part, and gathering pieces to this puzzle has become a new obsession for me. Which is what brings me to:
@Markw84 and I are both students of tortoise biology and physiology. Mark has contributed greatly to my tortoise knowledge in several areas, but particularly in incubation technique and theory. We've had many conversations about night temp drops, gas exchange, moisture and humidity, diapause, and more. He and I both experiment with many of these factors and are trying to learn more. Anyone who enjoys reading this thread and learning about this subject needs to directly thank Mark. He is the one who finally made this happen.
What is this all about? This:
That little thing that is double bagged and wrapped in blue duct tape and hanging under the monkey hut is a data logger. It records the temperature. It takes a reading every 10 minutes and stores it in its memory. In about a year, we will pull it out from its always shaded location, unwrap it, plug it into the computer and it will tell us the temperature in that spot for the last year. Why do we care about that? Because it gives us a local ambient temperature to compare to the readings from the other two data loggers.
Know what this is?
Its a nest hole dug by an adult female South African Leopard tortoise. She dug a full nest hole and then walked away from it without dropping her eggs. Then it rained for a day. I dug out the loose stuff that the rain washed into the hole and took this measurement:
It was difficult to get the camera lens at the right level, but the nest is about 9" deep when its filled back in.
Data loggers 2 and 3 were also double bagged and then put into these little Tupperware containers. Then I taped some hay string to the containers to make them easier to find and retrieve after a year. Here it is in the hole:
And covered back up:
Here is where she went and finally laid her eggs the next day:
Here is a pic showing the whole area. There are nests under each of the little baskets in this picture and our data logger is in the hole near the stump down there:
More to come in the next post...
